Accident
by blueandblack
Summary: Written for anythingbutgrey's 'Doomed Ship Ficathon' on LJ. The prompt was 'Their lips met'. Set during Half Blood Prince, AU.


It had happened by accident, Hermione thought.

Or because she was angry. Or because she was hurt.

Because she was embarrassed.

Because she was tired of waiting for Ron's brain to catch up with his body and was beginning to wonder if it ever would.

She had not stopped to wonder at the time if she was still in love with him.

_Still,_ she thought scornfully, _"In love." _

What an absurd idea. She had been a child in those first three years, when she had waved her hand in the air incessantly and never had the guts to say to Harry _Pick me._

What would have been the point? They were just children then, she reminded herself.

(His name was all over her books in print and in ink; the most extraordinary thing about _her_ was that she worked so hard to matter at all.)

He had let her make him her friend. She had pieced together a vague bigger and better, half seen, in secret moments, the kinds of words and deeds neither of them was ready for.

And then, somewhere along the line – along the line from Harry's eyes to Cho Chang's long black hair… she had put away childish things.

That was what she had said to herself – _put away childish things, Hermione._

But she was not a child anymore.

And when their lips had met…

* * *

"An accident." That was what Hermione had called it.

She had been wiping at her cheeks and staring at his mouth, and he had been saying something about Madam Pomfrey and how it was cool because Ron had told her the birds came out of nowhere and neither of them had even mentioned her name, and then she had told him to shut up, leaned in, and kissed him.

If that had been an accident, then slapstick was definitely her strong suit.

Harry pictured Hermione in a bowler hat, grinned at his soup.

A crust landed in it, sent pea-coloured goop flying.

"What's funny?" Ginny asked, munching on the rest of her toast.

"Not that," Harry said. He grimaced as he wiped the mess up with his napkin.

"Sorry," Ginny muttered.

And then she was all over Dean.

* * *

"They _really_ shouldn't allow mistletoe on school property," Hermione whispered, as she and Harry inched out of the room. "It's just a recipe for trouble, _honestly._"

Harry smirked at her red cheeks, nodded at Slughorn, picked up the pace.

"McLaggen's a recipe for trouble," he said when they'd made their escape. "You leave the mistletoe out of this."

"No, it's the two _together,_ you see," Hermione replied earnestly. "One would be perfectly manageable without the other. And since I suppose Cormac has as much right to an education as the rest of us, the mistletoe will have to go."

Harry laughed; Hermione was always funniest when she didn't mean to be.

"Well it's not as though he got anywhere," he reminded her.

"_Not_ for want of trying." Hermione folded her arms, forged ahead.

"Poor guy," Harry said, with a smile and very little sympathy. "Stuff worked like a charm for me. All I had to do was stand there."

Hermione paused, her eyes narrowing as though she thought he was making fun of her. Then she shook her head, said "Oh," kept walking, added "With Cho, you mean?"

Harry grinned. "They don't call it the room of requirement for nothing. Although…" He tilted his head, considering. "It could've done something about the crying – I dunno, made me taste like chocolate or something."

Hermione paused again, glanced furtively to the side, rubbed her hands over her arms, cringed when Harry's mind caught up with hers.

"Oh God, I just realized something, Hermione. My snogging is officially two for two with making girls cry."

Hermione stepped back, leaned against the wall and rolled her eyes ostentatiously. "I was crying _before_ the snogging. For totally unrelated reasons. And besides," she lifted her chin, her nose. "I had the decency to wipe my cheeks before we got started."

"Yeah that's right, you did." Harry smiled. "Quick thinking, that. Sort of like dropping a pillow on the floor before you trip over."

"What are you talking about?"

"You said it was an accident."

"Oh."

"I've been picturing you as Charlie Chaplin for six weeks."

"Really?"

"Yeah. With a cane and a hat and everything."

"Do I have a moustache?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"…"

"I probably ought to, you know - for completeness."

"Well… if you like. But I think prefer you without facial hair."

"I'll bear that in mind."

"Alright. Good."

The words had tumbled out of their mouths unnoticed. Hermione had been all about keeping still. Harry had been measuring his steps, toe-to-heel, like the walk to the wall was a tight-rope.

"This is weird, isn't it?" Hermione asked up-close.

"Yeah," Harry said. He lifted a hand, let his fingers catch in her hair.

"You're a mess," he whispered.

She was. Her hair was beginning to frizz in places, straining against the clips that held it in place, and there was a faint orange-ish stain down the front of her dress. The makeup around her eyes had pooled into little brown smudges, and she knew it, was busy making it worse by wiping at it while she said "I wasn't a mess to start with – maybe you oughtn't to be late. Maybe you oughtn't to leave me fighting for my… lips."

Harry laughed like you say things under you breath. She was being funny again.

Hermione went on: "It was very hot in there, you know, and I had to do an awful lot more running and ducking than I'm used to – in non life and death situations, anyway. And it's Cormac's fault I spilled the pumpkin juice – I think he has this idea that sneaking up on people is romantic, and it's very hard to keep spinning around all the time without - "

Harry leaned in, smiled, told her to shut up.

It was his turn.

* * *

It was a lot easier than either of them had anticipated – being together.

Harry found that Ginny's flaming hair seemed to cool overnight – seemed to have cooled already over some night in the past few weeks - and he was perfectly capable of taking his eyes off her. If she noticed a change, she didn't seem to mind.

_Ron_ minded. Ron made it very clear that he minded.

But he didn't have a leg to stand on, not with Lav-Lav still hanging off his arm.

Harry tried to feel guilty, he really did, but his heart just wasn't in it – for once.

He felt, curiously, as though he had survived a battle – so much so that he had to keep reminding himself that Voldemort was still out there building his war. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had already survived, that he already had _won._

That he had snatched an accidental victory from an opponent he hadn't recognized as such.

Because he hadn't known… Because he never would have thought…

He never _had_ thought of Hermione this way before.

When she'd first come barrelling into his life she'd been a nuisance, and by the time she hadn't been, Harry had been so bowled over by the idea of _friends, two of them,_ that he wouldn't have dreamed of dreaming of more than that.

(And let's face it, he had only been eleven, twelve, thirteen. He had only been a boy.)

Hermione teased him about it. "I suppose you fell in love with my new teeth, then. Really, if I'd known what a spectacular effect they would - "

"Your teeth did nothing for me," Harry scoffed. "I wasn't thinking about your teeth when I was mooning over Cho, was I?"

"Well perhaps you should have been," Hermione said archly.

Harry laughed, and then he said "No."

He leaned back against the sofa, pulled her with him. "I should have been thinking about your eyes," he said – to her – to himself. "And the way your hair sometimes seems like it's…" he grinned "… alive."

Hermione was silent, but her heart beat loudly against his ribs.

He shifted so he was facing her, leaned in and touched his nose to hers. "And the way you care so much about things nobody else even notices – about…" he kissed her fleetingly "…about me."

Hermione snorted. It tickled Harry's cheek.

"Everybody notices you, _Chosen One,_" she whispered.

Harry kissed her again, and when she smiled around it, when her hand ran a smooth line up his arm to his shoulder to the nape of his neck, he drew back, looked very gravely at her, and said one thing - one thing, at least, that he had long known to be true.

"No they don't, Hermione. Not the way you do."


End file.
